are too many who are almost come to be Heathens without knowing it. For there is a fafhionable notion propagated by most of our moral writers, and readily subscribed to by those who say their prayers but feldom, and can never find time to read their Bible, that all who worship any God, worship the fame God; as if we worshipped the three letters of the word God, instead of the Being meant and understood by it. The Univerfal Prayer of Mr. Alexander Pope was compofed upon this plan; wherein the Supreme Being is addreffed as a common Father of all, under the names, Februah, Jove, and Lord. And this humour of confounding things, which ought to be diftinguished at the peril of our fouls, and of comprehending believers and idolators under one and the fame religion, is called a catholic Spirit, that fhews the very exaltation of Chriftian charity. But God, it is to be feared, will require an account of it under another name; and though the poet could fee no difference, but has mistaken Jove or Jupiter for the fame Father of all with the Lord Jehovah; yet the Apoftle has instructed us better; who, when the Priest of Jupiter came to offer facrifice, exhorted him very paffionately to "turn from those va"nities unto the living God;" well knowing that he whom the Priest adored under the name of Jupiter, was not the living God, but a creature, a nothing, a vanity. Yet the catholic fpirit of a moralift can difcern no difference; and while it pretends fome zeal for a fort of universal religion, common to believers and infidels, betrays a fad indifference for the Christian religion in particular. This error is fo monftrous in a land enlightened by the Gofpel, and yet fo very common amongst us at prefent, that I may be pardoned for fpeaking of it in the manner it deferves. And let me befeech every serious perfon, who is willing to have his prayers heard, to confider this matter a little better, and ufe a more correct form; for God, who is jealous of his honour, and has no communion with idols, will certainly reject the petition that fets him upon a level with Baal and Jupiter. The true God is He that was " in Chrift reconciling the world to himself;" there is none other but He; and if this great characteristic be denied, or any other affumed in its ftead, a man is left without God; after which, he may call himfelf a Deift, if he will; but his God is a mere idol of the imagination, and has no corresponding reality in the whole univerfe of beings. Acts xiv. 15. The modern Jews, by denying their God to have been manifeft in the flesh, are as effectually departed from the true God, as their forefathers were, when they danced before the golden calf, and called their idolatrous fervice "a feaft to the Lord." For the being of God is not an object of fight, but of faith; it enters first into the heart; and if it be wrong there, the first commandment is broken: if a figure of it be fet up before the eyes, then the fecond is broken likewife. The first forbids us to have any other God; the fecond, to make any graven image of him. Now though we make no image, yet if with the heart we believe in any God different from the true, the idolatry indeed may be lefs, but the apoftacy is the fame. And this feems to be the cafe of the Jew. The Mahometans are another fet of infidels, who abher idols, but have in exprefs terms denied the Son of God, and fet up an idol of the imagination, a God in one Perfon. They inveigh bitterly against the Chriftians for worthipping three Gods; for so they state the doctrine of a Trinity in Unity, as fome others have done befide them. In answer to all thefe abominations of the Deift, the Jew, and the Mahometan, and to fhew that no unbeliever of any denomination can be a fervant of the true God, it is written-" whofoever "denieth the Son, the fame hath not the Father" and again"whofoever tranfgreffeth and abideth not in the doctrine of "Chrift, hath not GOD." And let the Socinians, who have not only vindicated the religion of Mahomet, but preferred it to the Christianity of the church of England, which with them is "no better nor other than a fort of Paganifm and Heathenifm*,” let them confider what a fhare they have in this condemnation. And to bring this matter home to the Arians; it is to be obferved, that every article of the Christian faith depends upon the doctrine of a Trinity in Unity. If that be given up, the other doctrines of our religion must go with it, and fo it has been in fact, that the authors who have written against the Trinity, have alfo difputed away fome other effential parts of Christianity, particularly the doctrines of the fatisfaction and of original fin. * See Leflie's Theological Works, Fol. Vol. I. p. 218, where the reader may find a great deal more to the fame purpofe; and particularly an Epiftle of the Socinians, to the Morocco Embaffador, in the time of Charles II. a great, curiofity, wherein their whole fcheme is laid open to the bottom by themselves. The whole Bible treats of little elfe but our creation, redemption, fanctification, refurrection, and glorification, by the power of Chrift and the Holy Spirit: and the reader will find hereafter, that there is neither name, act, nor attribute of the Godhead, that is not shared in common by all the perfons of the Trinity. If, therefore, the persons of Chrift and the Spirit are not God in the Unity of the Father, then the prayers and praises we offer to them, as the authors of every bleffing, will not be directed to the supreme Lord and God, befide whom no other is to be worshipped, but to *his creatures and inftruments: which overthrows the fenfe of our whole religion; and drives us upon a sort of second-rate faith and worship, which, befide the blafphemy of it, can be nothing but confufion and contradiction. It is no wonder then, that the Arians and Socinians, with their feveral under-fects and divifions, who have fallen into this fnare, and departed from the divine Unity, while they pretend to be the only men who affert it, have never yet been able to agree in the forms of religious worship. Some of them allowing that Chrift is to receive divine worship, but always with this referve, that the prayer tend ultimately to the perfon of the Father. So that Chrift is to be worthipped, only he is not to be worshipped: and if you fhould yenture, when you are at the point of death, to say with St. Stephen-" Lord Jefus, "receive my fpirit"-and confefs the person of Jesus to be the God of the Spirits of all flesh," by committing your own spirit into his hands; you are to take care not to die without throwing in fome qualifying comment, to affure hịm you do it only in hypocrify, not meaning him but another. Others, again, knowing this diftinction to be vain and indefenfible, and the fame for fubftance with the Latria and Dulia, by which the church of Rome excufes her adoration of the blessed Virgin, &c. have fairly got rid of it, by denying to the perfon of Chrift any divine worship or invocation at all; which is the cafe with our Socinian Unitarians here in England; for those of Poland are quite of another mind. How far fuch differences as thefe muft needs affect a Liturgy, it is very easy to forefee: and that it will for ever be as impoffible to frame a Creed or a Service to please all thofe who bear the name of Chriftians, as to make a coat th. fhall fit men of all fizes*. Prayer and divine worship and religious confession, are the fruit and breath of faith; and "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh':" so that until we are agreed in matters of faith, there is neither hope nor poffibility of our agreeing in any form of worship. God is the fountain-head, and religion the stream that defcends from it. Our fentiments as to religion, always flow from the opinion we have formed of the divine nature; and will be right or wrong, fweet or bitter, as the fountain is from whence they are derived. It is the having a different God, that makes a different religion. A true God produces a true religion; a falfe God, a falfe religion. Jews, Turks, Pagans, Deifts, Arians, Socinians, and Chriftians, all differ about a religion, because they differ about a God. Thefe few obfervations will be fufficient, I hope, to raise the attention of the reader; `and persuade him, that a right faith in God is a much more ferious affair than fome would make it; that it is of the last concern, and hath a neceflary influence upon the practice and holiness of our lives; that as no other devotion is acceptable with God, but that which is feafoned with love and charity and uniformity, the very mark and badge whereby his difciples are to be known from the men of this world, it is the principal duty of every Chriflian to know in whom he ought to believe, that" with one mind and one mouth we may glorify God 2;" for a right notion of God, will as furely be followed by a found faith and an uniform profeffion in all other points, as a false faith and a discordant worship will grow from every wrong opinion of him. 2 19 All that can be known of the true God, is to be known by Revelation. The falfe lights indeed of reafon and nature are fet up and recommended, as neceffary to affift and ratify the evidence of Revelation but enquiries of this kind, as they are now managed, generally end in the degradation of Christ, and the Chris " : Matt. xii. 34. Hales of Eten, in his farcaftic and malicious Tract upon Schifm, propofes it as a grand expedient for the advancing of Unity, that we fhould "confider all the Liturgies, "that are and ever have been; and remove from them whatever is fcandalous to any party, and leave nothing but what all agree on." He should have clofed this fenfence a little fooner; and advised us fairly and honestly to leave nothing; for that will certainly be the event, when the objections of all parties are fuffered to prevail; there being no one page of the Liturgy, wherein all, who pretend worship God as Chriftians, are agreed. 2 Rom. xv. 6. tian religion*: till it can be fhewn therefore that the Scripture neither does nor can fhine by à light and authority of its own, the evidence we are to reft in, muft be drawn from thence; and as we all have the fame Scripture, without doubt we ought all to have the fame opinion of God. But here it is commonly objected, that men will be of different opinions; that they have a right to judge for themselves; and that when the best evidence the nature of the cafe will admit of is collected and laid before them, they must determine upon it as it appears to them, and according to the light of their own confciences: fo that if they adhere as clofely to their errors after they have confulted the proper evidence as they did before, we are neither to wonder nor be troubled at it. : This very moderate and benevolent way of thinking, has been ftudiously recommended by those, who found it necessary to the well-being of their own opinions, that not a fpark of zeal fhould be left amongst us. And furely it is no new thing that the advocates of any particular error, next to themselves and their own fashion, should naturally incline to thofe who are fofteft, and ftand least in the way. Hence it is, that however magisterial and infolent they may carry themselves in their own cause; they always take care to feafon their writings with the praises of this frozen indifference: calling that Chriftian charity, which is nothing but the absence of Chriftianity and any the least appearance of earnestness for fome great and valuable truth, which we are unwilling to part with, becaufe we hope to be faved by it, is brow-beaten, condemned, and caft out of their moral system, under the name of heat, want of temper, fire, fury, &c. They add moreover, that articles of faith are things merely fpeculative; and that it is of little fignification what a man believes, if he is but hearty and fincere in it: that is, in other words, it is a mere trifle whether we feed upon bread† or poifon‡; the one will prove to be as good nourishment as the other, provided it be eaten with an appetite. Yet fome well-meaning people are fo puzzled and deceived by this fophiftry, that they look upon concord among Chriftians as a thing impracticable and desperate; * You may have a proof of this from the Essay on Spirit, by comparing the book with its title, which runs thus-The Doctrine of the Trinity confidered in the Light of Reafon and Nature, &c. + See and compare Deut. viii. 3. Amos viii. II. Acts xx. 28. James iii. 8. 1 Tim. iv. I. |